MBTA Driver Uses Bus To Stop SUV After Driver Passes Out At Wheel

QUINCY (CBS) – A veteran MBTA driver is being called a hero for using his bus to help save the life of a woman who passed out while driving.

Paul Healy was driving the Route 225 bus on Quincy Avenue Friday morning when he noticed the driver of a Jeep Compass slumping over the wheel and losing control of her SUV.

"I saw the car veer off to the right in front of me and slowed down. Then it went up on the curb and came back down and then when I got about parallel to the car, I looked over and I saw the woman slumped over," he told WBZ-TV Tuesday night on the phone from Florida, where he's on vacation.

Healy was afraid she would hit someone or something, so he maneuvered his bus in front of the Jeep to stop it.

"It was just seconds before she was going to go into the intersection," he said.

After the Jeep came to a stop, Healy called his dispatcher, who then called an ambulance.

Healy then ran off his bus, shut off the Jeep's engine and tended to the woman, later identified as Denise McDonald.

The entire incident was recorded on the four surveillance cameras attached to the bus.

McDonald, who was originally on her way to a doctor's appointment, was rushed to the Steward Satellite Emergency Facility in Quincy for treatment.

"I woke up in the emergency room and that is never a good sign," she told WBZ-TV.

She later told Transit Police she wanted to thank the T driver for "saving her life."

"He did absolutely the right thing at the right time and he was at the right place for me, so he is my guardian angel," McDonald said.

Healy has been an MBTA bus driver for 14 years.

Watch: Bus Surveillance Video